Thanks to iTunes, I now know that my Glass collection comes out to exactly 110 songs, or ten hours, twenty-three minutes, and eight seconds worth of music. I remember how I spent one week amassing this collection through Kazza, three days listening to each song once, and then three mostly-sleepless weeks listening to them over and over again during that crazy time that was All in the Timing. I remember listening to Glass as I roamed the halls; I remember playing him in my sleep, hoping I'd absorb him through osmosis, while keeping my parents awake in the next room; I remember humming his tunes in the shower, on the crapper, while walking my dog, all in a rather pathetic, vain-glory attempt to summarize his entire canon in a five minute piece of my own creation.
I remember still being awake at 4:00 in the morning on a school night after spending three hours on a five second transition between two songs, shaving off millisecond after millisecond until I was convinced that the rhythm and timing were perfect, only to bring it in the next day and present to my actors who were satisfied with the timing but not the actual songs I picked myself. In an attempt to keep them happy, I remember fighting off tears in front of them, my labor having been for naught, and returning to the drawing board, so to speak, the next evening, staying up all night to combine two different songs with the same painstaking attention to the minutest details.
I remember working with them, like a man possessed, like the madman Philip Glass himself, only to watch the entire thing brought to ruin.
I remember the cycles I went through after that; finding comfort in listening to him immediately after the end of AITT, coming to loathe him and everything to do with him shortly thereafter, reaching a sort of peace after that, and then... having these Philip Glass moods that strike out of nowhere, where I fervently have to listen to him.
If there's actually a point in explaining that, you're welcome to look for it.
Went in for my Lasik evaluation today, which went without a hitch (and, contrary to what Erik told me, without Valium). I'll have to show up for surgery itself tomorrow around 4:00, after which I'll have to keep my eyes closed as much as possible until at least the following morning. Since there's a slight chance I won't be able to see ever again, I did a marathon run of K&C and finished off the last 200 pages this evening, and I'll probably begin what might be my last round of Warcraft with Min in a bit.
Nah, I'm sure I'll be fine.
I hope I'll be fine.
I think I'll be fine.
...
... please don't be another Philip Glass...